One issue is the "feature" known as autoaim. When you shoot an arrow off-center from your target, the game attempts to correct for you, making your shot fly askew from the direction you fired. This is incredibly annoying. You often have to intentionally aim off-center to compensate for the fact that the target is moving, and this "feature" will make the arrow fly to the center of where your target is now, not where they will be at the time the arrow reaches them.

It's frustrating; You consistently miss targets that are getting up from chairs or walking slowly, that you would have been able to hit if the game wasn't mucking about trying to help you. It even seems a little insulting. This game is for advlts, I don't need any auto-aim hand-holding. If this were removed or a way to disable it could be implemented, I for one would greatly appreciate it and I'm sure a lot of other people would too.


The second issue is, I believe, new as of 1.5, as I did not notice it before. I assume it's caused by the archery talent 'Bullseye" at the top of the tree, since my bow doesn't have a paralysis enchantment and I don't think any of my mods are causing it.

When you fire your arrow at a target, the enemy will (about 15% of the time) light up green and go stiff, afflicted by paralysis. The problem is that the paralysis effect is applied the moment you release the arrow, and not the moment the arrow strikes the target, as one would expect. This gives the paralyzed target plenty of time to lean/fall over, causing the arrow to miss. Also frustrating! And very silly. Why would the arrow paralyze the target before hitting it? This is inconsistent with the way every other weapon enchanment works.

Thank you for your time.

Edit: Here are screenshots that illustrate what I'm talking about. I wish I could FRAPS it but my computer isn't good enough for that. The screens are coming out dark even with my brightness turned all the way up so I highlighted the arrows (left to right) with green arrows.

In these first four, we see where the arrow goes if you aim at a stationary target: Just to the right of the dot in the middle of the screen. It follows a nice straight path and hits the guy right in the head.
http://i43.tinypic.com/11qljqs.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/25rpeli.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/t6v5n7.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/i5xblz.jpg

Then, since I know the other guy is going to stand up out of his chair to the left, I aim to the left of where he's sitting to compensate. The arrow auto-aims to where he's sitting at the moment of release, taking a path a bit to the right of where an arrow would usually fly. And by the time it gets to him, he's leaned over and the arrow flies right over his back.
http://i43.tinypic.com/wb846h.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/28gw60i.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/34ovlvp.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/34qtjlj.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/10hndeg.jpg

Here's a screenshot that shows the second effect, with the paralysis. In this case, The guy gets paralyzed right out of his chair as soon as I release the arrow.

http://i43.tinypic.com/15e6yv7.jpg

Huh. I didn't know that the game auto-aimed for you. I guess that explains why many of my shots at moving targets have gone awry even though I was positive they should've made contact. Another irritating little thing is when you loose an arrow at someone and instead of stealthily one-shotting them the projectile bounces off an invisible barrier like the top of a low wall it should've easily cleared and suddenly your cover's blown for nothing. It also seems to be impossible to shoot through the spaces between railings and fences. The game acts like they take up way more space than they actually do and the arrow glances off.

i agree with thepawnsgofirst, never noticed any problem shooting or this "auto-aim" you claim is in effect. I know that if you hold left or right and shoot, your shot curves a bit but that's controllable. you sure "auto-aim" is the culprit?

as for paralysis, I never invested in that perk, I have poisons that do that for me. is that only with the new patch?

Oh, it definitely exists. It is most easily noticable at short to medium range, when your target is moving slowly to the left or right of where you are aiming, such as while getting up out of a chair. If you are at longer range, and/or if your target is moving quickly, it seems the auto-aim does not kick in and the arrow goes where you aim it.

Yes, it is a tad insulting. I'm not in favor of any auto-aiming feature, in any game. It's just a crutch that isn't needed, and it rewards you for being a lousy shot. If you aim and your aim is bad, you should miss. Kinda teaches you how to aim right, and that's a good thing. If you are on a PC, be sure to get this mod: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3460

There are two versions of it, the one to make aiming realistic is 'NoAutoAim.esp'. If you aren't on PC, sorry man.

As for hitting the backs of chairs, railings, and all kinds of other things that shouldn't rightfully be getting in the way of your arrows- that is due to an exaggerated 'hitbox' around most objects and terrain features in the game. You can aim like a foot or more above some object, yet your arrow will be stopped by the object. Why this is done is beyond me... I'm guessing it's some limitation or necessity of the game engines, as a lot of other games exhibit that same kind of annoying thing. Or it could be plum sloppiness

But that is really annoying when you are sneaking on a ledge, and you have what appears to be a clear shot at some enemy below, yet when you shoot, your arrow sticks in the ledge at your feet, or bounces off of it. This forces you to have to stand up and lose stealth in order to shoot from that position... losing your 3x damage multiplier in the process. Bad stuff.

Another issue, if you're standing on a ledge and you want to hit a target below you, you can do that in first person... But if you switch to third person and make the exact same shot, most of the time your arrow will just stop dead as if hitting a wall. I don't use third person much but I imagine this to be pretty annoying for people who do.

Archery is amazing.

that glitch is minor the most annoying glitch in archery is the one where your target suddenly with the speed of light evades your arrow , even if you are complete hidden and they don't even realize you are there
Evading arrows yes but this sometimes ridicelous when you suprise a 600 lbs frost trol and it suddenly suddenly moves left or right with a amazing speed

Edited original post with some screenshots. Apparently Tinypic didn't appreciate my rapid-fire uploading and a couple of them got messed up. Oh well, you can still see what's going on in the others.

just go to the ini and amend a couple of settings, that's all you need to do...

I play Bf3 from time to time and i own with aiming a RPG to the left of at a moving heli, so i'm good with shooting a unemployed bandit in the knee while he goes for a stroll.

I'd love to know which settings. The only thing I've been able to find so far was changing the shot angle so the arrow doesn't go 'up' from where you're aiming.

Never noticed any auto aim when using archery. One of the most rewarding things to me is hitting an animal that's on the run. I lead them and when the arrow hits I always get excited because it's a difficult shot especially for me on the controller as I'm not super accurate with the stick. I've never seen the arrows go anywhere except right down the line where I was pointing.

I don't believe I have ever had Auto-aim happen to me before,


I have noticed this though, I put it to my advantage in archery actually

Just look at the screens in the op. It's pretty obvious in the second set that the arrow is traveling much further to the right than where I'm aiming. And like I said, there's a point where the target is traveling fast enough, and/or is far away enough, that the autoaim doesn't kick in.

Gee that sounds awful. If that's a new feature of 1.5 I certainly won't be updating.

It makes you wonder what they're smoking over there.

The auto-aim has been there since launch. The part with Bullseye afflicting targets with paralysis as soon as the arrow is released, that is new as of 1.5. I think. I don't remember this ever happening before that, but I could be wrong.

Really? I've never noticed it.

I've posted this a while back, the INI tweaks below will make the arrow behave more like in real life.
This also seems to get rid of the "auto-aim" (My guess would be the 'Magnetism' set to 0). I've been using these settings for several weeks now.
Oh, and also turn off the cross-hair for a more realistic gameplay.

Skyrim.ini:

[Combat]
fMagnetismStrafeHeadingMult=0.0
fMagnetismLookingMult=0.0
f1PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7
f3PArrowTiltUpAngle=0.7

[Actor]
fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=12288.0000

I got the idea from here:
http://zemalf.blogspot.com/2011/11/skyrim-archery-tweak.html

This exact same thing happens to me all the time- but in first person. I never shoot a bow in third person.

AutoAim most definitely exists and affects all of you bow users, whether you realise it or not. Sure, you're usually aiming accurately and so you don't notice it most of the time. But after thousands of shots, I definitely became suspicious that a lot of my 'sorta kinda maybe close' shots were miraculously always hitting and taking down my targets, in total opposition to the laws of luck. So, i did a test. I found an NPC guard that was standing still in one place for a good bit of time, and used him as a test target dummy. With liberal use of the quick-reload button of course, to keep from becoming enemy #1 in Whiterun

I started out standing about 50 feet away from him, and proceeded to fire arrows off to one side of his head. Started with an obvious miss, shot an arrow a good 3 feet away from the side of his head. It missed. I proceeded to fire more arrows, getting a little closer in to him each time. Amazingly, when i shot one about a foot away from the fellow's left ear, he up and died. It was a complete and utter miss, yet it killed him. There was no movement going on, my aim was rock steady, and it was an obvious, clean, miss. Auto-aim. Yup. Repeated the exact same miss-killshot over and over, with the same result. Apparently, in Skyrim, 'close' really is good enough for horseshoes and bows.

Once I loaded up the NoAutoAim mod, this no longer occurred. If you miss by 1 inch, you miss. Try the same test yourself, you'll see.

See my post above for an easy INI fix to disable auto-aim ...

I already have a mod that fixes it (see last sentence of my previous post), but thanks anyways.

I really don't know what you guys are talking about, I've never seen this atuo-aim and my current playthrough is primarily an archer.

1. The arrow arcing works as intended.

In archery in real life, sighting pins are set to specific distances; the crosshair in Skyrim is also set to a specific distance. Because of the shape of an arrow, there is a small amount of lift (irl) meaning you would have to aim at different heights for different distances. Same goes for Skyrim.

2. I miss barely, I still miss.
3. I lead moving targets, I still miss them unless my aim is good.

I can still only just miss and it doesn't kill them.

4. Smokeyman, we only have your word that you've performed this experiment.

I noticed that Garrison is a console user and hasn't noticed it either. I'm also a console user, so maybe this is just a problem fo PC users

I had problems with paralyse as well. They just randomy become paralysed and fall over, even when I'm just aiming at them.